THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
them, and the magistrates on Jan. 18, 1525, after what was considered the victory of the Church party in a public debate, following many private conferences, ordered that these antipedobaptists present their children for baptism, and made it a law that any parents refusing to have their infant children baptized should be banished. On Jan. 21 they forbade the meetings of the antipedobaptists and banished all foreigners who advocated their views. Shortly after this the antipedobaptists began to practise believers' baptism. In a company composed entirely of laymen one poured water in the name of the Trinity on other members in succession, after they had expressed a desire to be baptized, and so, as they claimed, they instituted veritable Christian baptism. Like scenes were enacted in other assemblies. It is noteworthy that these first believers' baptisms were by pouring; immersion was introduced later. Also that in all the lengthy treatises of Zwingli on baptism there is no discussion as to the mode. These early Baptists practised pouring, sprinkling, and immersion as suited their convenience, and did not consider the mode as of much importance.
Though infant baptism was the first and the main issue between the Anabaptists and the Church
party, there were others of great 2. Anabap- importance. The former said that tist Tenets, only those who had been baptized
after confession of faith in Christ constituted a real Church; the latter, that all baptized persons living in a certain district constituted the State Church. The Anabaptists maintained that there should be a separation between the State and the Church; that no Christian should bear arms, take an oath, or hold public office; that there should be complete religious liberty. All this was not in accord with the times; and thus the -Anabaptists were considered to be enemies of the standing order, and were treated accordingly. On Sept. 9, 1527, the cantons of Zurich, Bern, and St. Gall united in an edict which may be taken as a specimen of its class. It gives reasons for prosecuting the Anabaptists, which are manifestly prejudiced and even in part false, and then decrees the death by drowning of all of them who are teachers, baptizing preachers, itinerants, leaders of conventicles, or who had once recanted and then relapsed. Foreigners in these cantons associating with the Anabaptists were banished, and if found again were to be drowned. Simple adherents were to be fined. It was made the bounden duty of all good citizens to inform against the Anabaptists (for the full text consult S. M. Jackson, Huhlreich Zwingli, New York, 1903, pp. 259-281). Similar laws against the Anabaptists were made and enforced in South Germany, Austria, the Tyrol, the Netherlands, England, and wherever they went. Such treatment suppressed Anabaptism, or at all events, drove it beneath the surface. How ineffectual it was to extinguish it appears from the fact that early in 1537, four Anabaptists from the Netherlands quietly stole into Geneva, and began making converts. John Calvin, who neglected no opportunity to do God service, as he conceived it, got wind of their presence and had
them and their seven converts banished by the magistrates (the incident is described by Beza in his life of Calvin, ed. Neander, p. 8; cf. Calvin's Tracts, Eng. transl., i. xxx.; Doumergue, Jean Calvin, ii. 242; Herminjard, Correspondence des Rcjormateurs, iv. 272). Anabaptists persisted in great numbers in Moravia, the Palatinate, Switzerland, Poland, and elsewhere.
Only in the Netherlands did the Anabaptists escape persecution, and there they became quite
numerous. They were joined in 1536 by
3. In the a remarkable man, Menno Simons (q. v.),
Nether- who organized them and his name has
lands and been given to the sect (see Mennon-
England. ites). From the Netherlands they
passed into England; but no sooner did they make converts there than Henry VIII. included them in a decree of banishment, and those who remained he threatened to put to death. Indeed, in 1535 there is record of ten persons who were burned in London and other English towns on the charge of Anabaptism (cf. John Foxe, Acts and Monuments, ed. Townsend, v., London, 1843, p. 44). How little this cruel course succeeded is evidenced by the continued presence in England of the Baptist Church.
That among the sober kind of Anabaptists there were unworthy persons, that some of them held visionary views, and that a few may have been goaded into occasional violence of expression, and possibly of conduct, may be accepted as proved; but that they were as a party guilty of the charges brought against them, as in the joint edict mentioned above, is untrue. As a class they were as holy in life as their persecutors; and their leaders, in Biblical knowledge and theological acumen, were no mean antagonists.
II. The Fanatical Anabaptists : The earliest mention of Anabaptism in connection with the Lutheran Reformation is in the spring of 1521 when Niklaus Storch, Markus Sttibner, and a third person, who
was a weaver, as Storch had been,
1. The made their appearance in Wittenberg
Zwickau and sought to convert the professors
Prophets, of its university to their views, which
were the familiar Anabaptist ones of opposition to military service, private property, government by those not true Christians, infant baptism, and the oath, together with the novel one that there should be a dissolution of the marriage bond in the cases where there was not agreement between the married couple in religious belief. These views they pressed with great vehemence and no little success. They also claimed to be inspired to make their deliverances. As they came from Zwickau, they are called the Zwickau Prophets (q.v.). Carlstadt was impressed by them, and characteristically allowed iconoclastic practises in his church. Melanchthon wavered, but Luther, who at the time of their visit was at the Wartburg, was so much stirred by the confusion they induced that he left his seclusion and opposed them stoutly and silenced them by ridicule rather than by arguments.
Among the leaders and followers on the peasant side in the Peasants' war which desolated Germany